


Human Feelings

by ReynaAtTheEnd



Series: Tales from Askr [1]
Category: Fire Emblem Heroes
Genre: Anxiety, Bonding, Fluff, Gen, Insomnia, Learning to read, Some angst and hurt/comfort, subsitute mother
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 05:31:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14348946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReynaAtTheEnd/pseuds/ReynaAtTheEnd
Summary: The Summoner is teaching Nino to read and trying to teach Jaffar to value himself. All while she ponders her place in the crazy world she's been summoned to.





	Human Feelings

Human Feelings

Kingdom of Ask

"Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number 4 P-Private – no, Privet – drive, were proud to say that they were p-perfectly normal, t-thank you v-very much.” Nino's brow was creased with concentration as she brought the book closer to her face. “They were the last people you'd expect to be i-involved with...a-anything...”

Kiran hummed gently, brushing Nino's hair to one side as it fell in the younger girl's face. “Take your time,” she murmured. They were sitting together on the younger girl's bed, her room located in one of Askr castle's many spiraling towers. There was a large window next to the bed with blinders for the night, now pulled back so the small mage could better read the pages of her book. “You're doing just fine.”

Nino leaned further into her side, frowning at the old book's small print. “..strange or mystery – mysterious, because they just didn't hold to such non sense.” She beamed. “I got it!” She'd been struggling with that sentence since the afternoon.

“Yes you did,” Kiran smiled. She placed her hand on top of Nino's. “You're learning very quickly, I hope you know that.”

Nino cheered and hugged Kiran around the middle, and the brown haired girl swallowed over a hitch in her breath. With renewed enthusiasm, the green haired girl opened the book again and began slowly enunciating the following sentences, while Kiran looked over her shoulder, offering small hints whenever she paused and stumbled. This had become a routine to them a while ago; late in the day, once Kiran had viewed the training grounds (mostly to see who's been in there since this morning and had to be reminded of little things like food and water being important) gone through the kitchens and spoken with the staff, prepared plans and strategies with Anna, Matthew and Alfones, and done inventory, she would take Nino aside with an easy book for the rest of the evening. Kiran still felt guilty that it had taken her as long as it had to realize that Nino was illiterate, especially given how much she talked about her favorite books.

Nino had been one of the first Heroes she'd summoned, way back at the beginning of this...well, she was tentatively calling it an adventure, though often it felt too terrifying to bear such a lighthearted moniker. Her first summon had been Roy, far braver than her despite being three years younger (dwelling on this fact frequently left her disoriented, he was sixteen how the hell was he sixteen he was a general and he was younger than her???). Then there had been Beruka, Leon, Marth, Leif, Mae, and then Nino and Jaffar. More had come afterwards, but they were the first. 

She was so sweet, and so desperately sad. Kiran had quickly found that the slightest positive reinforcement sent her over the moon. She had Jaffar, who hovered at her side like a shadow, only parting when he was sure that she was in safe company, but she spent time crying after the Black Fang, the organization she belonged to before being summoned.

(Kiran isn't sure if she hates the Black Fang or not. One side of her virulently curses them for taking this girl into the world of assassination and murder. [do her battle plans not constitute murder?] On the other side, Nino loves them so much, talks about how they save people who no one else cares about.) 

“'Harry. Nasty, common name'.” Nino read aloud, and there was nothing quite as warming as her pleased smile when she got through a sentence without stuttering. She paused at that line, then blinked up at Kiran and asked, “Is it? It doesn't seem that common to me.”

Kiran was startled into laughter when she realized that, out of the hundreds of people – heroes and staff and commoners – that made up the local population of Askr, she hadn't met a single person named Harry. “That's true, isn't it?” She managed when she calmed down. “It's much more common where I'm from.”

Nino, who'd gone into a giggle fit of her own, looks up from the book and asked very seriously, “You don't talk a lot about your home, Kiran. Why? Do you miss it?”

“Well...yes, of course. The same way you miss home. I don't really talk about it...because I'm not sure how to explain it.” That was as good an answer as any, she decided. “It's so different from Askr or Elibe or Judgral.”

“Different how?”

“Hmm...you know this palace? It's so big that it seems the towers are scratching the sky and clouds?” Nino nodded. “In my world, there are a lot of buildings like this, called skyscrapers. Some of them are business buildings, but others are condominiums – imagine an inn, but this big, and you can buy a room the way one might buy a house.”

“Really?” Nino gasped. “There couldn't possibly be enough lords and princes to fill that many houses!”

“Well, not everyone who lives in one is a prince or a noble. Mostly, ordinary people live there.” Her eyes somehow become even rounder, and Kiran is reminded that such things are not commonplace in the worlds her [allies? Friends?] hail from. “I have to say though, they look pretty darn boring compared to the castle. They don't have spires or large stone halls, they're just giant rectangles of concrete and glass windows.”

Nino wrinkled her nose at this, and its such an appropriate gesture for someone her age that Kiran nearly forgets that just this morning, this little girl nearly bisected Valter the Moonstone with two gestures, and visibly threatened to finish the job if he didn't accept Kiran's contract. She loves Nino, adores her, and sometimes she forgets that this sweet little girl is in far less danger than she herself is. “Concrete?”

“Its a sort of stone alloy used in construction. It makes for sturdy houses. Its also very, very gray.”

“Gray? Like the dungeons?”

Kiran laughed again, because Nino looked so appalled, and it was sort of true wasn't it? “Only on the outside, thankfully. The insides of the building are often far more interesting.”

“That's good.” Nino raised the book again. “So there are lots of people called Harry in your world?”

“I don't personally know anyone named Harry; but it's a common name in Britain. That's, erm, across the sea from my home, and where this book is set.” 

“Across the sea...” Nino looked contemplative. “I've never been to the sea, just for fun.” 

"Maybe we can do that, sometime. If you can finish this book.”

Nino's eyes flare with delight, and she immediately turned the page again. She managed to finish the entire first chapter before the torches burned low and Kiran gently insisted that she go to bed. 

She wasn't sure when she decided to become everyone's mother. [Roy jokingly called her that when she made a huge fuss over some minor injuries he'd gotten during an altercation with Embla. She wasn't sure who was more surprised – herself, or Roy, who's mother died when he was too young to have clear memory of her.] She had never had to look after anyone; she was the younger sister and youngest chid in a middle class household who'd never had to worry about a thing, except for her two cats fighting – which in hindsight wasn't nearly so stressful. She had done some babysitting, briefly, back when she was younger, but she'd never really had to worry about her charges. Now she wished she had asked her mother more questions, asked for advice, [or maybe she's trying not to think about her mother or else she'll start crying, and that will upset Nino, worry Leif and Marth, and cause Sharena to drag her off to the Spring Festival again] because for all Alfonse insists that she's a tactical genius she's always half certain she's making mistakes. Not just on the battlefield, but maybe with her friends. [These friends she's made, in this strange place... She'd never had many before.]

Shouldn't she be insisting that Nino and Roy not fight? At least Leif and Marth were eighteen, and even that felt just a little too young to be knee deep in war. Something cold sat in her stomach every time she instructed them on the battlefield; it didn't matter that Sigurd praised Roy's competence with a sword and Olwen sat in awe of Nino's magical power. It still felt wrong.

Kiran gently pulled the covers over Nino's shoulders. Her heart ached at the sweet smile this simple act earned her. She sat at the edge of the bed, lightly stroking the girl's hair until she fell asleep.

“...Sweet dreams,” She said softly, before standing and snuffing the lamp.

She walked to the doorway, closed it, and nearly had a heart attack when she turned around to find Jaffar standing right in front of her, partly concealed by the low light of the hall. [It makes her miss electricity. The magical contradiction of her house aside, a lot of little things in Askr made her miss electricity.]

Kiran sputtered wordlessly before leaning against the wall. “Damn it Jaffar, haven't we talked about this?” She managed when she could breathe again.

In as much as Jaffar talked to anyone, anyway. He acknowledged her due to her dogged determination to establish some sort of rapport with him, as she did with everyone in her 'army', [she had an army. Her. What was the universe coming to?]. It helped that she was close to Nino, who he loved. [Loves, loves so deeply when he was raised to feel nothing. His concept of life is her.] It...wasn't always easy, but she thought that he was responding positively to her, and Nino would beam and say he liked her whenever he gave her more than a one sentence response to a question or remark she made. 

[It was difficult. Half the time she listens to him speak his meager quiet words, or looks at him and sees the confusion on his face when Eliwood and Roy talk and spar together, and has to blink tears away. She listens to him call himself a thing and wants to cry and scream. More than anything, she wants to find the man who turned a little boy into a living weapon and choke the life out of him with her bare hands. As if doing so could somehow erase what he's done.]

While she was getting better at recognizing his presence, half the time she found herself jumping out of her skin when he seemingly materialized out of the ether near her. Matthew did it sometimes too, but not half as often, because he's more sensitive to her reactions. 

Jaffar didn't really respond to that. “...You've been awake since the middle of the night, last night.” He intoned, his voice perfectly stoic – as always.

Kiran was thrown anyway. “You noticed?” [She'd been battling insomnia ever since high school started. On good days, she slept fine. On the bad days, it was so difficult to do anything at all. Somehow being in Askr seems to melt the two results together; being rested when she did sleep, but not sleeping often. Not sleeping means not facing nightmares and guilt. Not sleeping meant making sure her plans were perfect.] 

Jaffar inclined his head. “Leif was speaking to the Commander about ensuring you slept. She sent me to find you.”

Kiran huffed. “Sheesh.” She did feel a touch guilty, because Leif had a serious conversation with her the week before about taking care of her health. She had gone for five days straight with only a few hours of sleep and her body had simply given out. Once she'd regained consciousness, she'd found Leif by her bedside, both upset and angry. “Please, tell me you'll treat yourself with more care.” She was ashamed to fail her promise to be more careful in such a short space of time. Still... “She doesn't have to...lord, you'd think I was a child.” 

Jaffar said nothing, but his eyebrow rose fractionally.

“Alright. To bed it is then. Though I was hoping to work a little bit on the new maps first-” The stoic assassin actually scowled a bit at that, taking her by the wrist and pulling her towards the stairs. “H-Hey! No need to drag me!” Again, he apparently didn't feel like dignifying that with a vocal response. “I'm coming, I'm coming.” His grip lightened at that, but he did not release her. “Jaffar...” 

He said nothing. He lead her through the winding hallways and outside the mighty castle to its courtyard, where the full moon shone so brightly compared to her home. [Looking up at the fume free skies of Askr still made her dizzy] Her house, looking as out of place as ever, beckoned her. She was glad that magic had brought it here when she upgraded the hall. It was a comfort. 

Kiran paused at the door. “Thank you,” She said quietly. Normally, that was enough to dismiss Jaffar, so when the assassin didn't even twitch, she sighed. “You've been told to wait here until I fall asleep, haven't you.” A small nod. “Oh well. Come in and make yourself comfortable...there's milk in the fridge.” A strange look. [She will kill the 'master'. She swears it.]

She unlocked the door of her two story house and stepped inside, removing her sweater and swinging it over the banister as she kicked off her shoes. Jaffar followed silently. She went into the kitchen, pouring herself a drink and staring contemplatively at the sink. Now that she's not thinking about her work, she does feel a little tired. Hopefully that was a good sign.

“You care too much.”

She nearly dropped her glass in surprise. Even with her consistent encouragement, she could still count on her hands the number of times Jaffar initiated a conversation. She turned to face him, eyes wide. He was standing a little straighter than usual. His obsidian eyes seemed like drowning pools for the soul. “You are too kind. To me, to all around us. It's a weakness, Kiran.”

She shook her head minutely. “I don't believe that.” She said, relieved when the words came out firmly. “I never will.” 

“It makes you mortal.” Jaffar said. Kiran, who had heard him called the Angel of Death, wondered if he was repeating what someone had told him. “Vulnerable. You're making a grave mistake if you think of me as a friend. I am a tool for you to use. Nothing more. If I fail, cast me into the heap with the trash and offal. You must, for it is the way of life...”

Kiran stopped herself mid lunge, knowing an assassin would react badly to sudden contact, just putting her hands on his shoulders. “No!” She snapped. “No, never.” Then she hugged him.

He turned to stone in her arms, stiff and unmoving – unsure of how to respond. “You are a man, a living, caring being who deserves...deserves much better than this. I'm sorry that I still need you to fight for me, not because you can't serve a purpose, but because I wish I could give you peace and quiet along with Nino. I will never cast you aside. Never.”

“Never.” Jaffar repeated, and she could hear wonder in his voice; tears prickled at the corners of her eyes as he hesitantly placed his arms around the small of her back. “Then...you give me no choice but to live on and on, serving you.”

She buried her head in his shoulder. “Good. I order you not to die, Jaffar.”

“Understood. I will return to you; you need not worry.”

Kiran managed a smile as he let her go. She gestured for him to follow; when she reached her room, she pulled over a beanbag chair for him before she collapsed on her bed, closing her eyes. “Rest well, Jaffar.”

“...Yes.”


End file.
